Brigham and Women’s resident graduates say farewell in a socially distanced photo

For more than 100 years the graduating class of internal medicine residents at Brigham and Women's Hospital have gathered on the steps of Harvard Medical School dressed in their white coats for a final farewell photo.

Even a coronavirus pandemic couldn't stop that tradition — except this year the photo was taken by a drone, the faculty and residents standing 6 feet apart so the gathering spilled from the steps onto the lawn.

At a time when graduation ceremonies are being held via video-conferencing technology, birthday parties celebrated from doorsteps, and so many other milestones altered by the pandemic, it was important that the hospital find a way to honor this year's crop of residents, said Jonathan Katz, head of the internal medicine residency program at the Brigham.

These residents have put in 35,000 hours of additional work helping the hospital battle COVID-19 in recent months, Katz said.

After seeing the racial disparities in the impact of coronavirus, these residents in recent weeks have participated in a Black Lives Matter demonstration at the hospital and have advocated for racial equity in health care, he said.

"Overnight like a hurricane [COVID-19] completely disrupted what we doing," Katz said. "I have so much pride in the way they managed this."

So earlier this week, about 140 residents, many of them finishing up the three-year program, showed up at Harvard Medical School steps. Katz and the staff had been there early in the morning marking off spaces 6 feet apart with white tape.

For the residents, who has spent the last three years together, the photo marked the first time many had seen each other in three months without masks on.

They couldn't hug or say good-bye in the usual fashion, but it was still meaningful to have a last moment together before setting off to the next step in their careers, said Daniel Loriaux, who on Saturday was getting ready to leave the Boston area for a four-year cardiology fellowship at Duke University Hospital.

Loriaux said he and other residents have struggled together over the past few months working both with cornavirus patients and in the intensive care units at the hospital. Having to explain to very sick patients and their families why they couldn't be with each other and had to communicate through FaceTime instead was particularly difficult, Loriaux said.

"That was hardest thing, to keep the family together and to explain the limitations, I struggled with that mightily," Loriaux said. "It's unimaginable that any of us would have thought we would be in this place. There is no group of people I'd rather go through it with."

For Loriaux, the class photo meant even more because his father was a resident at the Brigham in the late 1960s. Loriaux remembers walking down an office hallway several years ago when he interviewed for the position and finding his father's class photo hanging among the others from years back.

The photo of 2020, he noted, will be unique among the collection.

"I think this one will stand out," he said.

Katz said he got the idea of using a drone to mark the completion of the residency program after seeing an aerial photo of the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony.

He enlisted John Fish, the chief executive of Suffolk Construction and the chairman of the Brigham's board of trustees, for help getting the photographer and the camera equipment. Attending physicians at the hospital came in two hours early so the residents on rotation could be relieved from their duties and participate in the photo, Katz said.

"This was such a special moment and we felt so indebted to them," he said.

Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @fernandesglobe.

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